Is it possible to imagine a disused nuclear power plant as a monument or memory site, a trace in the landscape that tells of days gone by? Have our notions of what constitutes history and cultural heritage expanded to the degree that we can also include a physical setting whose meaning is so controversial, especially considering the current political relevance of nuclear power technology?

Here the author discuss questions of normality, deviation from norms, and power relations through a selection of Polish student essays that address both gender relationships and the relationship between East and West. The working assumption is that theories of gender and the East— West relation can enrich each other and thus help achieve greater understanding of how both power systems work, individually, and combined.

If one wants to understand the arguments for institutional and ideological change propagated today, a closer study of the developments during the “long 19th century” is crucial, simply because this particular period in the history of higher learning continues to play a central role in the ongoing discussions on the future of the European university — Wilhelm Freiherr von Humboldt certainly casts a very long shadow.

There was no doubt among Swedish diplomats and union leaders that they would support the independent trade union movement Solidarity that had suddenly appeared on the Polish stage. Still, they could not ignore the risk of renewed military intervention that would have had disastrous consequences for Poland and security in Europe.
This essay presents how diplomats and union leaders acted and communicated to support the democratization of Poland.

Professor Archie Brown argues that Gorbachev was not selected as General Secretary because he was a reformer. He did at the time he became party leader believe both that the system was reformable and that it must be reformed. But he did not, however, reveal the full extent of his existing reformism on the eve of perestroika.

A close reading of Ginzburg’s diaries shows how a fight against a shrinking living space is conducted on two levels: the purely physical fight for survival during the famine in Leningrad and the intellectual fight in a cultural environment increasingly dictated.

In the 1960s, the Soviets took up a rivalry with the US in a hitherto new field, industrial design. ElektroMera was a grandiose effort to produce utilities for everyday use: an effort that nonetheless was never realized in the form of finished products.

The development of a system for producing Russian fashion clothing, along with the discussion surrounding this venture into fashion, is described here. The GUM department store established a studio and hired designers. The quality and wealth of ideas was often poor, but demand grew steadily.

A close reading of Zinoviev and his view of the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a tragedy. Zinoviev helps us to understand how it feels to have your world dismantled and how that experience forms many of the attitudes that lie behind Putin’s policies.